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Excellent points @itsbruce. It did strike me as a somewhat Daily Mail standard piece of research.
The selection process is dubious, and it's important to note that only some patients would have stepped forward and agreed to do it.
Miss_Mouse
@itsbruce
Sample group was tiny. Needs to be repeated with much larger groups and by other researchers. The researchers also making some worryingly bold claims about data which might just as well show flaws in their data or in their selection of test subjects. 3 of the 9 "markers" don't change after therapy - so obviously we've discovered a way to detect a predisposition to depression. Um, the first (and most honest) reaction should be to wonder if their small group all share some other factor which created this common characteristic. After all, they had all been through at least some psychiatric evaluation and treatment in the past. In fact, not only were they all from the same small geographical area and all patients of the same company's clinics, they had all been subjects in a previous study - the same study, not various different ones - by the same company. So they share a lot of significant common history. And the selection process for this study stinks.
One to file away until there's some more serious work done on it.